It was the eve of the patron's feast, that 29th of November 1304, and as always, there was a great turnout in the crypt where the mortal remains of the apostle Andrew had been resting for ninety-six years.

Among the crowd praying in front of the sepulchre, there was a stranger with a long beard who, at some point, after having spoken to a nearby cleric named Pierantonio Suraldi, he started asking him questions regarding the strange things that were happening in that place. At the end of the celebration, the youth, curious about the words of the stranger, went to check and found out that, in the little well covering the urn, there was a silver try, like a cup, that no one had placed there, with a strange colourless liquid inside. When the youth told the story, it was hailed as a miracle. That liquid was sprinkled on the sick people and on man from Tramonti, who had been blind for seven years, recovered his sight. That liquid was defined as the manna of Saint Andrew. People from Amalfi didn’t know it yet, but the miracle happened regularly wherever the body of the saint was buried. Initially in Patras, in Greece, so much that the presence of the liquid and its abundance were considered as a premonition of the success of the crops. And then also in Constantinople, where the remains stayed until their transfer to Amalfi on the 8th of May 1208.

And in Amalfi since 1304, the event is repeated in the seven annual dates connected to the solemn celebrations in honour of the apostle: 28th of January, 26th of June, 1st, 21st and 29th of November for the month of Saint Andrew, 7th and 24th of December. It stopped for a long time only from 1530 to 1586, when the manna reappeared suddenly. Therefore, the pastor of the Cathedral announced again to the people “We have manna!”, showing the vial with the transparent liquid, to which miraculous healings are attributed, so that it is usually passed over devotee’s eyes. If the manna appears, the ceremony ends with the Te deum song, while when it does not appear, the Parco Domine is recited, as an act of begging for forgiveness.

In Amalfi, the patron Saint Saint Andrew is celebrated with different events involving the whole city three times a year: on the 30th of November, the day of his feast according to the liturgic calendar, on the 8th of May, when the body arrived from Constantinople, and on the 27th of June, on the anniversary of the miraculous storm, which in 1544 saved Amalfi from the assault of the pirate Barbarossa’s fleet in 1544.

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